1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a method for planning an examination of an examination subject in an imaging diagnosis device as well as an imaging diagnosis device for this purpose. The invention can in particular (but not exclusively) be applied in magnetic resonance systems in which the magnetic resonance images (MR images) that were acquired by the examination subject can be post-processed in different manners.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Magnetic resonance systems are increasingly used in radiology in the examination of patients since they enable a relatively exposure-free examination of the patient as well as the appraisal of different body regions with different contrast performance. Many different post-processing possibilities have been developed in order to be able to process the acquired MR images with various post-processing steps and to be able to better respond to a specific clinical question.
Furthermore, in magnetic resonance tomography techniques have been developed with which the entire body of an examined person can be shown step-by-step as a magnetic resonance image, with the person being moved through the scanner, similar to computed tomography.
For this purpose, exposures of various regions of the body are made at various positions of the patient table and these individual exposures are then combined into a total exposure. Among other things, with these techniques it is possible to represent the entire-spinal column or the entire vascular system of an examination person by combining the individual images with image post-processing methods.
In the prior art, for the planning of an examination it is likewise known to retrieve images of earlier measurements with the respective measurement parameters and to incorporate these images into the planning of a measurement of an examination person, with the same measurement parameters being used as in the sought reference measurement.
If an operating person now wants to repeat a measurement that has led to a reference image for the generation of which a number of images and/or post-processing steps were necessary, the operating person must use the initial images with which the reference images were previously generated by post-processing, which must now be repeated with the present examination subject. The post-processing steps must hereby be created manually, without support by the imaging diagnosis device. This leads to a time-consuming planning of an examination.